Welcome to the Daily Stoic podcast, designed to help bring those four key stoic virtues,

courage, discipline, justice, and wisdom into the real world.

This will define your legacy. It doesn't seem like a moral question. It seems more like a personal choice,

how you spend your money. Whether you save or invest, or spend or enjoy, how you spend your time,

whether you fritter it away or you spend it on pursuits and people most important to you,

whether you are stoic or epicureate. But discipline, temperance, the Stoics believed, was a virtue for a reason.

We've been talking about the founding fathers a lot here for the 250th anniversary of America.

And you can see as you contrast the founders just how important this virtue is.

Both Thomas Jefferson and George Washington profited from slavery, and both knew it was wrong.

Yet, at the end of their lives, it was Washington who freed his slaves, not Jefferson,

even though Jefferson had written far more eloquently about human equality, as well as the

eternal shame of slavery. Why is this? Well, it's partly because Washington far more disciplined

and Sto still could afford to

mannument his slaves. Early on, he hadn't been able to afford to run Mount Vernon without them,

but he was secure enough at the end of his life to do what he obviously should have done,

what his conscience knew he should have done years earlier. Jefferson, the Epicurean, was more than $100,000 in debt when he died.

He had ransacked Europe for antiques and finery. He had expanded his estate multiple times, sparing no expense.

He left wine and the best foods. And so he couldn't remotely afford redemption. He was scared of leaving

nothing to his children.

He could not afford to do the right thing.

Discipline as a virtue then is related to the other virtues.

By controlling our urges, our wants, our lifestyle,

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